


Death’s Door

by JBankai89



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Death Fic, M/M, Memories, Mpreg, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 06:45:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18632917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JBankai89/pseuds/JBankai89
Summary: Death comes for everyone.





	Death’s Door

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This story made me cry as I wrote it, so I hope that means it's good. Please enjoy :)
> 
> **Trigger Warning: Brief Suicidal Ideation**

_This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,_

_ Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, _

_ Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes _

_ thou lovest best, _

_ Night, sleep, death and the stars. _

_ A Clear Midnight – Walt Whitman, 1881 _

 

Death’s Door

 

Severus’s mind was hazy.

He blinked, and as he looked around, he saw that he was on the floor of his Hogwarts chambers.

_What am I doing down here?_ h e wondered,  _why am I not at home?_

Severus blinked a few times, and the world around him slowly came into focus.

_How is it that I can see without my glasses?_ Severus thought, his brow pinched in confusion as he sat up, but no twinge of back pain accompanied the movement, enhancing his sense of disquiet even more. He looked down at himself, and his hands looked like his hands.

But they were  _not_ his hands.

There were the hands of a forty-year-old, not an eighty-seven-year-old. Severus flexed the limbs, and he felt no arthritic pain. He got up, and did not sway. He had no need for his cane.

“Explain to me what you are doing here again?”

The drawling, familiar voice made Severus whip around, and he stared as he saw himself—his  _younger_ self— bracing on a cane, his upper body wrapped in bandages, but well-concealed under his voluminous robes. He was glaring at the young man that stood in the doorway of his rooms, but Harry did not appear at all ruffled by the withering stare.

“Harry,” Severus breathed, and he felt his heart ache with longing. It had been too long since he’d seen his husband.

“I came to see how you were doing,” Harry explained, scuffing one of his battered trainers against the stone floor, unwilling to meet the older man’s eye. “You were chewed up pretty badly by Nagini.”

“And as you can see, wonder of wonders, I am still walking and talking,” Severus replied dryly. “Go away.”

The younger version of himself slammed the door in Harry’s face. The older Severus blinked, and suddenly the scene changed.

It was a few years later—Harry looked older, more mature, but still young. Maybe twenty-one or twenty-two.

“Are you ever going to leave me in peace?” Severus groused, and Harry, who had been sprawled out in front of his fireplace with what looked like a textbook, inclined his head a little to offer Severus a wide grin.

“Nope,” he replied simply, and without another word he went back to his studies.

The observing Severus took a step forward. His younger self continuing to complain about Harry’s presence, and did not seem to notice the elder Severus as he crossed into the scene and looked at the book Harry held.

Severus felt his heart constrict.

_Auror Training._

Severus lurched back, his heart in his throat.

“No, no, _no_...” he muttered to himself, but neither his younger self nor Harry seemed to notice him as anguish flooded his heart.

He couldn’t endure this, not again.

“I know what this is,” Severus called out, to which he received no response. “I am not a fool! These are my memories, and I am dying. Death, show yourself!”

“Quick on the draw, aren’t you?”

Severus turned again, and he glared at the man before him.

Black untidy hair, now flecked with grey, his golden skin a shade darker than it had been in his youth, rounded glasses, and the distinctive scar upon his head.

Harry, the last time Severus had seen him alive.

Severus gritted his teeth as he glared at this particular iteration Harry, who seemed to be able to see him, unlike the other version of himself and his lover, making it clear that this was Death, not his husband, who appeared intent to make him hurt even more by taking on this form.

“How dare you,” Severus snarled, “how dare you come to me wearing the skin of my dead husband! You are Death, aren’t you? Is taking the souls of the dying not enough, you must first twist the knife?”

“This is your last hurrah, Severus, not mine,” Death replied with a small, almost reassuring smile. “In here, you see what you want to see. Obviously, you want to see Harry.”

“Tell me what happened to me,” Severus said, ignoring Harry’s— _no, Death’s_ —statement. He had to stay focused and remember that he was looking at Death, not his late husband.

“The short version?” Death asked, cocking his head to the side a little, “Liver failure. Ever since Harry died, you’ve been living on practically nothing but whisky and whatever food was fastest to prepare—that’s over twenty years of alcoholism, Severus. You went from having a fulfilling life with a man you loved and lost, to reverting back to the bitter old man you were before. You became a widower at sixty-eight, and you’re dying at eighty-seven. Not a bad life for someone like you.”

“Someone like me,” Severus sneered, turning away from Death to look around the room. They were still in his old dungeon chambers at Hogwarts, but it was a different day. It was a year or two later, and past the time when Severus had finally given in to Harry’s foolish, misguided charms—they were snogging on the sofa.

Looking at the scene was both painful and wonderful at the same time. He still missed Harry as though he’d been told yesterday that his husband was gone, blasted away by some nobody and beyond where Severus could save him.

But in here, he could  _see_ Harry again.

_His_ Harry.

He could watch them snog forever.

As Severus observed the scene, he realized that this was likely the night of their first kiss.

They had argued, loudly, and Severus had proclaimed that he had nothing to offer someone in their mid twenties. Harry had called him an idiot, and they’d finally kissed.

In the morning, Minerva had told him to fix the warding on his chamber door, given that Slytherin House had apparently caught every word of their shouting match, though thankfully, not what had come after.

Severus watched the kiss break, and smiled just as his past self did the same. He watched himself reach out to touch Harry’s soft cheek, and his fingers ached to touch that skin again.

“Harry...” his past self whispered reverently, and Harry grinned as he leant in to kiss him again.

Before Severus was ready to let the scene go, the sight of his past self and Harry was obscured by fog, only to clear as though by a strong wind, and his breath caught when he saw them, Severus’s past self sitting at the table in the Burrow, looking particularly sour, while Harry was beaming as he clutched his hand, unwilling to be even somewhat ambiguous about their relationship.

“You’re...you’re...you’re...” Molly Weasley said, her eyes almost bugging out of her skull as she stared at the pair of them, while his past self rolled his eyes.

“Congratulations, Potter,” his past self said dryly, “you broke your surrogate mother.”

“Quiet, you,” Harry retorted, his body shifting in its chair a little.

Severus smiled as he recalled how Harry had kicked him lightly, trying to silence Past Severus’s sarcastic remarks.

“But, Harry, _why_?” Molly asked tearfully, and Severus, his past self, and Harry all rolled their eyes at the same time. “You’re young, and so handsome, why would you choose to be with someone who could be your father?”

“Age is only a number,” Harry protested, and Severus smirked as he watched his past self scoff and roll his eyes yet again.

“I beg you not to say that, Harry,” he said, “it makes me sound like a dirty, brain-washing old man.”

“Molly,” Past Severus continued after a moment's pause, “I would be the first to tell you that I, too, protested this, but Harry is a persistent little twerp, and he approached me after he was legally of age, and out of my care. He claimed to be _checking up_ on me following my injuries sustained during the war, and insisted on sticking around after I repeatedly kicked him out of my quarters at Hogwarts. In the end I succumbed to his... _charms_ , and he seemed quite keen on introducing me to you as his partner.”

 

“Why am I being shown this?” Severus demanded as he turned to Death, who was grinning at him quite cheekily. “This was never high on my list of _favourite moments;_ it took us _months_ to convince that devil-woman that I was not abusing her surrogate son, and her attitude got even worse after we eloped.”

“Obviously you wanted to see it, Sev,” Death said. “I'm only the chaperone here, you run the show.”

“Only Harry gets to call me Sev.”

“But I _am_ Harry.”

“No, you’re not,” Severus countered icily. “ _Harry_ was the love of my life, and _you_ are Death, wearing his skin as you escort me from this life to the next. That gives you _no_ privileges whatsoever.”

“Blimey, Harry was much more pleasant during all this,” Death complained with a heavy, dramatic sigh, and Severus eyed him with newfound anger.

“ _You_ took Harry from me?”

“I did nothing of the sort,” Death protested calmly, as though he’d had such a discussion hundreds of times before. “He was a soldier plucked from the field. I am the guide, not the cause of his demise. A Dark Wizard took him from you, not I.”

“Plucked from the field before his time,” Severus protested. “I still lost him.”

“If it helps, he felt the same way about you,” Death offered. “Technically, I’m not supposed to say anything, but I get a little leeway with soulmates. Harry’s only regret was leaving you behind. He hated that you would be all alone, and he cried a lot about that. He kept asking me to go see you, to reassure you, but I don’t think he quite understood the dangers of doing so. If I went to you before your time, I’d have to kill you.”

“Hardly that much of an imposition,” Severus protested, “I would have seen Harry sooner if I had died with him.”

“And if you had committed suicide, you’d be happier?” Death asked, and Severus glared at him.

“Harry was the light of my life,” Severus replied icily. “I had twenty wonderful years with him, and then some piece of _filth_ stole him from me.”

“And how would your daughter have felt, losing both her fathers so soon?” Death asked, and Severus glared at the spectre.

“She would have been raised by Granger and Weasley. She...she did dull the pain, I admit,” Severus replied grudgingly. “Lily was a beautiful child, and a strong young woman. She will be an excellent Auror.”

“Just like her father,” Death said, and Severus glared at him.

“As long as she does not join Harry in an early grave, I will always be proud of her.”

Death smiled ambiguously, and he turned away from Severus as another scene began to unfold before them.

It was later, Harry's temples faintly tinged with premature grey. There were matching gold bands on Harry and Severus's ring fingers. Severus recognized the scene even without the tells of Harry's age, and knew that his husband was thirty-five.

Harry was naked upon the bed. His stomach protruded slightly, perfectly rounded, and Severus smiled bitterly as he watched his past self caress the bump reverently, kissing it, and making his husband laugh.

“Sev, stop, that tickles,” Harry protested, squirming a little under his touch. “Lily knows her father loves her, all right? But I'm not so sure anymore about _me_...”

“You know that I love you, Harry,” Severus's past self murmured as he straightened up and kissed Harry properly. Severus could hear Harry moan into the kiss, and he shivered with want. God, how he missed him.

They touched. Severus watched his past self continually touch Harry's baby bump that contained their daughter. It had involved months of uncomfortable potions for Harry, but he had wanted to do it—he'd been  _adamant_ that he carry their child. And Harry had positively  _glowed_ with joy throughout the pregnancy. He loved being pregnant, and had always talked of having more children, but Lily had been their only one.

“Stop this,” Severus said, his voice shaking, and he cursed his own weakness as tears streaked his cheeks. “Please. I cannot see this.”

“I told you, Sev,” Death said, “I'm just the chaperone here. You're running the show.”

Severus cursed, and willed the image away. It refused to fade so quickly, and Severus kept his eyes shut until he heard the scene finally fade away, and it was replaced by the vision of a hospital bed, with a fatigued-looking Harry and his past self curled up together with a tiny bundle between them.

“Thank God she looks like you,” Severus heard his past self say, “your body and my brain...she will be a force to be reckoned with.”

Harry laughed, arching up for a kiss while he rocked the newborn in his arms.

“For once, I don't mind so much that you're calling me a moron,” Harry teased. “She's just...so perfect. Sev, we _made_ this!”

Severus chuckled, and held Harry and Baby Lily close.

His family.

The scene faded, long before Severus was ready for it to. He reached out, but he could not reclaim that perfect moment. The one that materialized next made his heart clench.

Harry at forty-six.

“ _No..._ ” Severus whispered, but despite his most fervent wishes, the scene would not fade.

“Oof,” Harry groaned, making the bed creak as he fell onto it. Severus smiled, and pulled his husband close, making him laugh softly.

“You're tired,” his past self observed, and Harry smiled at him lovingly.

“Yeah, your daughter ran me ragged today. I _must_ be getting old.”

“As if that would ever slow you down,” Severus retorted fondly. “Who thought a ten-year-old girl would be enough to defeat the Great Harry Potter.”

“I'm not _that_ great...” Harry said, rolling his eyes, but laughed when Severus drew him close, kissing him deeply.

“You are everything to me, Harry,” Severus heard his past self say reverently. “You and Lily are _everything_. You both are my whole world. I do not know what I would do without you.”

“You'd get by,” Harry said teasingly. “I love you, Sev. You know that, right? I just...I _love_ you.”

“No,” the Present Severus said, clenching his eyes shut as he tore his gaze away from his scene. Tears streaked his cheeks, and a howl of despair bubbled up in his throat. He couldn't see That Day. He _wouldn't_.

“No what?” Death asked.

“Tomorrow is the day Harry dies. And I right along with him.”

“You didn't die,” Death said, “you lived. And you lived on for many years afterwards. You lived for your daughter, refusing to allow your bitterness touch her, even as your grief consumed every other part of your life. Harry died, and you lived.”

“ _Stop it!_ ” Severus snarled, whipping away from the scenes, and towards Death. Seeing him still ached, as he still bore Harry's shape. “Do _not_ speak as though you knew him. You did not know Harry as I did— _no one_ knew Harry like I did. I loved him, and the Fates took him from me far too soon. He was the love of my life, and I _lost_ him.”

“Sev?”

Severus looked up.

Two Harrys were standing before him.

One he still recognized as Death, but the other...

Something was  _familiar_ about him.

“Harry?”

Blinking back tears, Harry nodded.

“Told you,” Death said with a wry smirk, “with soulmates, I get a little leeway—”

“Is there _any_ way to shut him up?” Severus interrupted dryly, and Harry laughed, though he was still crying.

“Not that I've found, no. When it was me, he looked like you...didn't sound anything like you, though.”

“Oi!” Death protested indignantly, “I am standing _right here!_ ”

“Have you not learnt yet, Harry?” Severus replied, his voice a little weak as he ignored Death's remarks, “I am _irreplaceable._ ”

“Oh, _Sev_...” Harry let out another sob as he broke into a run, the same moment that Severus did, and they fell into each other's arms, laughing and kissing and crying, embracing for the first time in more than twenty years.

“Come on,” Harry whispered in between teary kisses, “show me what I missed.”

Severus smirked a little, still holding Harry, and they turned as one. This time, Severus felt as though he had better handle on how to control the memories, and he showed Harry what he knew he wanted to see.

Their daughter.

Together, they watched her grow up.

Severus showed Harry Lily embarking on the Hogwarts Express, and then meeting her in Hogsmeade. He showed Harry Severus gently shunting her back to the Slytherin table when she tried to join her father at the Head Table.

He showed Harry the many nights where Lily would sneak out of her dormitory and join him for a late-night cup of cocoa in his quarters, and then he would escort her back, not having the heart to dock points for her endearing misdeed.

He showed Harry Lily's Quidditch tryouts on her Daddy's old Firebolt, outstripping all the other Seeker hopefuls by a large margin, and became the only girl on the Slytherin team.

He showed Harry Lily getting her letter preceding her fifth year, where she got a shiny Prefect's badge, and hugged her father in her excitement.

He showed Harry that painfully awkward dinner with Lily and her first boyfriend at sixteen, who was too petrified to speak, and then her first girlfriend at seventeen, who was much more bold, and seemed all too happy to speak her mind to Severus.

He showed Lily's acceptance to the Auror Training program, and the moment where she hugged her father and whispered, “I'll make Daddy proud, I promise, Father.”

“I know you will,” Past Severus said.

“She did,” present Harry said.

Severus smiled sadly.

“Come on,” Harry said, wrapping his arm around Severus's waist as the vision faded, and a bright, white light replaced it. “Time to go.”

Severus followed, reassured beyond any doubt that Lily would be all right without him.

Death led him into the afterlife, with Harry at his side.

 

The End

 


End file.
